South Korea has accused Chinese language AI startup DeepSeek of sharing consumer information with the proprietor of TikTok in China.
“We confirmed DeepSeek speaking with ByteDance,” the South Korean information safety regulator advised Yonhap Information Company.
The nation had already eliminated DeepSeek from app shops over the weekend over information safety issues.
The Chinese language app brought about shockwaves within the AI world in January, wiping billions off world inventory markets over claims its new mannequin was educated at a a lot decrease value than US rivals equivalent to ChatGPT.
Since then, a number of international locations have warned that consumer information will not be correctly protected, and in February a US cybersecurity firm alleged potential information sharing between DeepSeek and ByteDance.
DeepSeek’s obvious in a single day impression noticed it shoot to the highest of App Retailer charts within the UK, US and lots of different international locations around the globe – though it now sits far beneath ChatGPT in UK rankings.
In South Korea, it had been downloaded over 1,000,000 instances earlier than being pulled from Apple and Google’s App Shops on Saturday night.
Current customers can nonetheless entry the app and apply it to an online browser.
The info regulator, the Private Info Safety Fee (PIPC), advised South Korea’s Yonhap Information Company that regardless of discovering a hyperlink between DeepSeek and ByteDance, it was “but to verify what information was transferred and to what extent”.
Critics of the Chinese language state have lengthy argued its Nationwide Intelligence Regulation permits the federal government to entry any information it desires from Chinese language firms.
Nevertheless, ByteDance, headquartered in Beijing, is owned by numerous world traders – and others say the identical legislation permits for the safety of personal firms and private information.
Fears over consumer information being despatched to China was one of many causes the US Supreme Court docket upheld a ban on TikTok, which is owned by ByteDance.
The US ban is on maintain till 5 April as President Donald Trump makes an attempt to dealer a decision.
Cybersecurity firm Safety Scorecard revealed a weblog on DeepSeek on 10 February which recommended “a number of direct references to ByteDance-owned” providers.
“These references counsel deep integration with ByteDance’s analytics and efficiency monitoring infrastructure,” it stated in its evaluation of DeepSeek’s Android app.
Safety Scorecard expressed concern that together with privateness dangers, DeepSeek “consumer behaviour and gadget metadata [are] doubtless despatched to ByteDance servers”.
It additionally discovered information “being transmitted to domains linked to Chinese language state-owned entities”.
On Monday, South Korea’s PIPC stated it “discovered visitors generated by third-party information transfers and inadequate transparency in DeepSeek’s privateness coverage”.
It stated DeepSeek was cooperating with the regulator, and acknowledged it had didn’t to have in mind South Korean privateness legal guidelines.
However the regulator suggested customers “train warning and keep away from coming into private data into the chatbot”.
South Korea has already adopted numerous international locations equivalent to Australia and Taiwan in banning DeepSeek from authorities units.
The PRESSHARK has contacted the PIPC, ByteDance and DeepSeek’s mother or father firm, Excessive Flyer, for a response.
